Alan Caro came to teaching by way of coaching ice hockey and roller hockey 15 years ago, fascinated by the challenge of teaching a player individual skills while creating a winning team culture .  A dually certified general and special education teacher, Alan set about helping his students build foundations to make it to the next level in their learning: learn to decode to read to learn, learn basic then advanced comprehension skills to become an engaged reader and a thinker, and master the process and mechanics of essay writing to become successful in middle school, high school, and college. Tools and techniques from Teachers College’s Reading and Writing Workshop, The Writing Revolution, and Jennifer Seravallo infuse Alan’s work with middle and high school students with a variety of challenges as a middle school and high school learning specialist. He is starting his third year as a learning specialist at Yeshiva University’s High School for Boys and has a thriving tutoring practice over Zoom with students in China and in the United States.